Network-attached storage (NAS) devices are widely used in a network environment for storing data from, and sharing data with, network devices in the network. Typically, NAS devices include one or more disk drives for storing data to be used in the network. The connections or interface between NAS devices and the network is typically through Ethernet. Current implementations of NAS devices rely on the speed of the network interface to load and off-load potentially large amounts of user data. This requires the user device such as a computer connected to the network that is loading the NAS device with data, to remain turned on and execute the transfer application. When the user device is performing the transfer of large amounts of data (e.g., as when initially loading the NAS device) this process can take an unacceptably long time. For example, in a NAS device with a LAN interface having a speed of approximately 100 Mbps, the transfer time of a 250 GB data size could take as long as fourteen hours. In the consumer space, for example, waiting such a long time is unacceptable, and the consumer would likely decide the system is not operational.